Traditional As Modern - Community, Discourse and Critique In Jnanadev Part II

- Jayant Lele

    Inaction of a renouncer is like a claim that one can stop breathing by falling asleep and therefore,

     Having attained human body those who regret having to remain active have to be merely stupid.
This celebration of human productive activity does not blind Jnanesvari to the domination of man and nature over man in actual community.
      Thus for him it is at the same time a community of the oppressed (Samvasarshrant ज्ञा.4.32). It is a community of those who experience oppression but cannot find a way to transcend it. Jnanadev's choice of Gita for his interpretation becomes understandable since it claims to address itself to the oppressed at various levels of consciousness. Gita claims that seekers of universal meanings fall in four categories: those who merely experience oppression (आर्त), those who consciously seek to analyse its causes (जिज्ञासू), those who are ready to act (अर्थाथी). and those who have recognized the unity of thought and action(ज्ञानी)
      There is an important difference between Jnanadev and others who have turned to Gita for a message. Jnanadev expresses the relation of Gita to seekers of meaning as that of a compassionate mother (माऊली). It is not a taskmaster -teacher or a purveyor of sacred and secret knowledge. Mother in this case symbolizes the principle of understanding of human inter-subjectivity in which active subject ness of both actors is recognized. The intended, emergent equality of subjects in a dialogue is implied in this symbol. Jnanadev's emphasis on community with his audience is not only a ploy to get a message across. It is inherent in all of his reflections on life. Hence we find in him no aggressiveness, obstinacy, deviousness or argumentativeness of a debater. Emphasis is on discovery of meanings through dialogue. A differentiated unity of the teacher and the taught, which is always implicit in a dialogue situation, is to be fully realized as a goal. It is this consciousness of the community, actual and potential, that also guides Jnanadev's choice of the poetic medium. Once again it is not an instrument for making the complex messages of Vedanta palatable to his audience. For Jnanadev the projected experience of potential community, of its universality itself an aesthetic experience. Dualalisms of truth and beauty, content and form, search of knowledge and enjoyment of the muses ( रसास्वाद) cease in such a community.
       To such a potential community Jnanadev juxtaposes its negation: life experience in the actual community. The three principles of Being, Consciousness and Freedom ( सत्, चित्त्, आनंद ) stand as dialectical opposites of illusion, falsehood and pain:

       Sruti refers to it as Being so as to negate illusion and as consciousness to end the domination of inertness or falsehood.Through these negations of Being and illusion, etc., the positive unity of the three principles differentiates itself.Most hermeneutic interpretations locate universality or unity of these principles in Atman (the Spirit) as the ultimate reality. For Jnanadev, Atman expresses itself in the form of the world. Spontaneous human community is ever changing, joyous manifestation of the Absolute (Chidvilas).

      Innumerable forms and sights arise but pure consciousness ( चित्) unites them all.

      Furthermore, Jnanadev compares this relationship to speech;

      Though millions of words meet in the abode of speech, this gathering cannot conceal that they are all nothing if not speech.

      Jnanadev's elucidations of the relationship between speech and experience, give this analogy between Atman and speech a much deeper significance than as a mere illustration. The crucial, and yet 'paradoxical place occupied by speech in his philosophy can be shown with reference to his choice of language and his focus on dialogue (Samvad).
       I cannot go into a discussion of the relationship between language and community here. If we translate Adhyatma as the transcendent. Atman as the "Given Unity" (Anadisiddha) that changes with each individual (thus there can be no two identical perceptions) then Atmanubhav, as experience and thought, becomes communicable only to the extent that the other understands what is communicated in relation to his own manifestation of Atman. That is, each individual subject must understand his own experience and thought as a special case of knowledge held in common. This way, what is essentially beyond communication becomes intersubjective knowledge and such knowledge, as Adhyatma becomes the transcendent. The community that transcends differentiated experience and thought and rests in its unity does so through speech. That is why even in Rig Veda, Vak (Speech) is the first creation and representation of Spirit. Jnanadev's choice of Marathi, a language spoken by the productive classes in his society and rejected as vulgar and unsuitable for spiritual knowledge by the Brahmins, rests on this insight into the relationship between language and community. Without it his enormous enthusiasm and confidence cannot be understood. Jnanadev does not speak of merely translating the great message from Sanskrit into a folk language.
      He says:

      In these lines the inference that Sanskrit, as a dead, fossilized language had lost its ability to generate live, new meanings is unmistakable. As monopolized by legitimizes of the ruling classes it held no meaning for Jnanadev's community of the oppressed. Marathi, on the other hand was the language of the living tradition of that community. For this reason alone Jnanadev is confident that Marathi can bring to life that universal and contemporary meaning of Gita that remains encrusted in its original Sanskrit shell. The necessity of resorting to Marathi language and to the poetic medium is grasped by Jnanadev in his dialectical view of tradition and of the principles embodied in Gita.

      Said Shiva. not unlike your own unfathomable beautiful disposition, my beloved, the meaning of Gita is eternally new.

      Discovery of these eternally new meanings of tradition is a communal enterprise, an enterprise of discourse. For Jnanadev, therefore, the notion of discourse is of fundamental significance.

      Thus Jnanadev and Chakrapani are like mirrors with eyes. When they thus witness each other their dualism evaporates.

All excerpts from Amrutanuhbhav are from Amrutanuhbhav Bhavarth Manjiri
by Anant Damodar Athavale Dasganu. (Nanded, Vittha1 Yashwant Marathe, Sak, 1851).

Excerpts from Changdeopasasti are from L.R. Panngarkar's Shri Jnanadev Maharaj
Caritra ani Granth Vivecan
(Poona, R. Pangarkar, 1912).

Part III